The Conqueror
by Lola Witherbottoms
Summary: Daenerys Targaryen visits her ancestral home of Valyria to gather the courage she needs to invade the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. While she is there, she comes across the very last of her kind. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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Smoking ruins loomed over the rubble-strewn streets, while suspiciously-colored puddles ran wetly between the bricks. A dense gray smoke clouded the sky, and a chilly breeze wound its way through torn awnings. Shutters cracked against the walls, baring windows like empty eye sockets. The Doom had fallen on Valyria centuries ago, but the Daenerys Targaryen's eyes, it might have happened only yesterday.

She walked, a solitary figure amid the abandoned houses. The wind wailed through tiny cracks in the surrounding stone and over fallen statues. The noise brought gooseflesh to her arms, though at seventeen she knew there were no such things as ghosts. But still, the eerie silence bothered her, so much so that she found herself glancing over her shoulder at each empty alleyway, feeling as though something was looking at her from the lurking purplish haze.

The sound of her encamped army could be heard over the wind and creaking of wood; it comforted her somewhat. She had commanded even her bloodriders to stay away from the ruined city. She had to do this alone.

She started as something warm brushed over her head; looking up, she saw that it was Rhaegal. Sighing in relief and at her own foolishness, Dany watched as he flapped his lazy wings and craned his long neck, taking in the city below him. She wondered what her dragons felt, if they could sense their ancestors here as she could sense hers. Their spirits lingered here, the Targaryens of old, well before the ancient tales of Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters. She would bring her family back into the light. She might be the last scion, but she would see to it that the Targaryens were remembered.

The ruins of her ancestral home loomed tall and imposing in the distance. It was an immense structure, built entirely of dragonglass whose jagged remains glinted wearily in the light of the blighted sun. Her sandaled feet brought her carefully over broken stone and splintered wood. Her eyes were fixed only on her destination. It was all that mattered at the moment.

The halls of the castle were dark and choked with rubble. It was dank, hard to breathe, and her eyes burned with the remnants of ancient smoke, but still she pressed on. Water poured down the cracked walls and onto the floor. Her feet slipped and she nearly fell, but she kept on.

She had to force her way through a clogged staircase, sifting aside rocks with her bare hands, not paying any attention to the cuts she received. Slowly, a wan light began to filter in.

She came out on a small promontory that had once connected the castle to an ancient lichyard by way of a bridge. The span of stone was cracked in the middle with chunks of stone missing, but it was altogether whole. Creeping carefully across, she stepped down onto the scorched grass of the cemetery.

Looking around at the monuments built to honor her ancestors, Dany felt a surge of pride. She had come from these powerful men and women. They had made Valyria into an empire and had kept it in existence for thousands of years, conquering nation after nation, until they controlled nearly all the surrounding lands and islands. She smiled.

The Targaryens didn't bury their dead as other Houses did. Instead, they burned them. Fire and Blood, the Targaryen words. They let the ashes blow away with the wind, as if they had wings like dragons. Then monuments were built of shining, opaque dragonglass in the likenesses of the noble kings and queens. Somehow, these memorials had not been damaged in the Doom, save for a few cracks and pieces missing here and there. There were stone dragons curled about the feet of some; she thought of Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal.

She walked slowly around the lichyard, imagining the statues as they had been in life, with shining silver-gold hair and stern purple eyes. She wanted to stand as tall as them someday, to return to her true home in Westeros as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Her ancestors would lend her the strength and will she needed to become a just and powerful ruler. The throne at King's Landing would be hers, regained for her family.

She gazed up at the face of a beautiful, undamaged princess, her sightless eyes gazing at the gray and hopeless horizon. Dany stood at her feet for longer than she could fathom, simply staring into her face. Something about her drew her in, but she couldn't say what. Maybe the way she stood defiant, protesting her fate and the destruction of her home. The unyielding set of her jaw seemed to say that she wouldn't take such punishment lying down. She would do what she could to keep on, to live and survive, to conquer. Maybe, just maybe, Dany saw some of herself in the princess.

At last she turned away, somehow indelibly changed. She walked in a slight daze, not paying attention to where she put her feet. She only stopped when she kicked something hard. Curious, she looked down to see an egg. It was certainly a dragon's egg, huge and a brilliant blue hue swirled with gleaming silver and flecks of green. Trembling, she bent to pick it up, a sad smile tingeing her face. It was warm to the touch. The last of the dragons. Just like her.


End file.
